my shirt barely fits over my stomach
my belly is a bag of granny smith apples
**** and plump
misleading in their sweetness
underneath growing ten-fold each week
all the different fruits for growth
leave me anemic for heartier things
tenderloin heart, blood steak
there's a biting pain on the side of my hip
that feels like what I imagine a dog nipping at your heel
could feel like
and I hear it
the small squeak at the bottom of a storm drain
a miniature kitten trapped in the middle of concrete and hot cement
it hasn't rained in months
and my mouth starts to water imagining
the dehydrated lungs of an animal
that's destiny has been sealed

i met you in the middle of august
during the death of summer
but the birth of my life
the leaves were just beginning to turn
the shade of mustard
of my favorite yellow
the specks of gold inside the dog of my childhood
and you were a melancholy prince
a monsoon of everything I was always too busy looking elsewhere for
always on the cusp
now before my eyes it was terrifying  
I was too busy in my own sadness
always teetering on the verge of the roof
more mosquito bite than girl
when they asked why I was always writing
what could I write about if I wasn't ever talking to people
no sensory experiences but the ones I imagined
a shyness of a body
a flushing fever of a person
how could I explain
spill onto the kitchen sink gripping strangers' shoulders
crying I was in love with everything
and could that be such a bad thing
I didn't want to be a wound
but there we were
stealing groceries from the store and never sleeping
inside a romantic cocoon
I would go anywhere with you
be your favorite friend
a favored nervousness inside the pit of your amygdala
if you wanted me to

a spit pact by the cul-de-sac
of your old house
the yard was always perfect
but the shingles trembled
and the roof always felt like it might fall
you told me not to worry
that saliva is thicker than blood
and once the home is ruined
you'll still remember me
as one of the good girls
as one of the good girls

you wore acrylic nails that scratched the back of my neck
because you said it made you feel older
and your green poppy dress always blended
in with the backyard trees
while you smoked foreign substances
from an old lipstick case you carved out
and it was all so feminine
and all so beautiful
but I could never get high enough  
so I had to pretend that everything
felt as far away as climbing the skyscrapers in downtown

your laugh always bordered on cackling
and you promised that when our paths diverted
and they would
to remember
that hotel rooms should never feel like people
and that some men are strange
under different lighting
and to always close my eyes when crossing the street
and maybe I would survive
and I said
yes yes yes
I understand I say like I understood

when you got a scrape on your knee
you told me sometimes you wished
you could be as weightless
to never disrupt any floorboards
or understand the gravity
of heaviness
you look at me
and I'm envious of your curls
and I can tell by the way you straighten them
to the point of abuse
that you envy mine

there is a moth that resides on my bedside table
inside the warm lamp like a womb
like an endearing cozy hand
reaching for your face in the middle of a frozen hysteria
he rises from his bed of light every night
a bottom floor full of mirth and fuzz
ready to relay the songs of his memories
slow dancing in the small space of my room like he's memorized where the floor slants and what parts creak
his mouth moves in a jagged frenzy and I am devoured inside the falsetto of a pregnant hum so constant my breathing loops in significant O's
he waits for my eyes to close so that his wings open up
moving the dust to gather itself and move to another part of the house
the fluttering in sync with the wavering of the hypnotic sound waves
the antennae sighing along with the mist outside slowly forming on the windowsill
my head becomes a hot sun and as the beads of sweat trickle he moves closer until he reaches with spindly legs
drying the perspiration from my forehead with a tongue that shushes me to sleep until I am still in a cocoon of silk
telling me that want and need are always the same things
always the same things

i cut the envelopes that come in through my mailbox with the jagged edges of my front teeth
women used to chew their umbilical cord after birth
and my mother tied my hair in the same ponytail the entirety of my girlhood
the elastic snapping a couple times a day
because the girth of hair was always too thick
and I envied the women with thin, silky hair
the kind that didn't snap or break
split in two like my lip in the winter
or when hitting the pavement

years later when I became bored with everything
everyone I knew was in love with
I became queen of abandoning all in a jiffy
sobering up and growing up
the more I went up
the easier it became to be simple and dumb

so cut my tongue-tie
leave me in the dark
i'll never be middle class
as you explain poverty to me in your fake squalor
I understand that one day you'll eventually
move back to your parents' wealth
and my sun will be hotter

I'll quit my job and live in between different parks
with similar names and the birds that always remember your
face but they have so many
your head becomes a scrambled egg
you'll listen to my songs
but that's only because
you want to believe they're about you

it's liquid gold
when everyone is defined by what kind of milk they drink

I'm sitting under a canopy of dark green leaves
I don't recognize the breed
You come forward and tell me that a new law has already been discovered
What goes up must eventually come down
The first time I recited one of my poems aloud I drove through the page leaving skid marks shaped like tongue twisters
No one paid attention and when I stepped off to catch my breath I threw up a mouthful of apple seeds that I later dug into the backyard
I moved out before i saw any growth but I promise something rose from the dirt, crooked and shy at first
A medley of anxious nail-biting and approval-seeking
I once knew the secret, the all note worthy testimonial to a meaningful life
But the soup has grown timid and uncertain of where it will go when it no longer holds anything
A toothbrush is born from underneath my skirt
is this cleaning the slate?

An artist too lazy to make any art
So what am I?
The sleepy commitment holding your hand in public places
An enormous gratitude lounging in between spaces with a stain on her shirt
Always seeking to be the next big thing

A stoic
Unable to process any other philosophy
that doesn't kiss me when I'm nervous
Lights turning on in the afternoon
And the warm glow of knowing people are inside
There
Ready to open up the door and invite you into the individual smells that occupy their reality

I am I-don't-remember-the-city-anymore girl
Sterile buildings and antiseptic coast
Are both memory and fiction
I am everything's-sort-of-familiar and yet exactly obscure
A contrarian careful to never admit that everything
Will make sense with enough persuasion
In the corners of my mind sits a woman
Smoothing out creases of my brain like the folds on bed sheets
Or the wrinkles in a shirt
And I allow her to because I love her
And I believe that what she does is affection
And maybe I'm right
Or maybe I'm wrong and I was never an artist
But something else entirely because that's so much easier